Cancer is a major cause of death worldwide, being the second-leading cause of death in developed countries, and even the number one cause of death in e.g. Australia, Japan, Korea, Singapore and the male population of the UK and Spain. The number of people who develop cancer each year is increasing. Nevertheless cancer therapy has not managed to decrease cancer mortality in the last three decades.
The failure of a cell to undergo apoptosis, programmed cell death, is a major factor contributing to occurrence of cancer. Most anti-cancer drugs and gamma-, irradiation exert their lethal effect by inducing apoptosis. Chemotherapy is thus currently largely based on the cytotoxic effect, in some cases also on a true cytostatic effect, of a compound used, for example by way of DNA-alkylation, inhibition of mitosis, interference with metabolism via antimetabolites or structural analogs, and DNA intercalation of antibiotics.
It is an object of the invention to provide a compound suitable for inducing apoptosis in a cell.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a method of inducing apoptosis in a cell.
Another object of the invention is to provide a method of preventing carcinogenesis (cancerogenesis) in a cell.
Another object of the invention is to provide a pharmaceutical composition for treating a tumour/cancer and/or preventing carcinogenesis in a cell.